Marty Hearst's Multi-Hearse – Middle Grade
‘Mrs Bingley’s dead.’
Mouth full of peanut butter sandwich (crunchy, obviously), I pause. ‘Mrs Bingley? From two doors down?’
‘That’s the one.’ Dad shakes his head. ‘Always generous with her jammy dodgers.’
There’s a respectful pause. Then:
‘Does this mean I have to help out this Half Term?’
‘Marty, I don’t want to hear this again. You know I can’t get by without a bit of help.’ Turning his back on me, Dad starts ferociously washing up one cup.
Ugh, typical Dad. I’ve got plans for this Half Term.
‘But what about Fatal Method: Multimethod?’ I can hear the whine in my voice, and I don’t care. ‘You said you’d take me to the shop at midnight to get it.’
‘Did I? Doesn’t sound like me. Well, you’ll have to shelve that for now. Mrs Bingley’s the third corpse this week and we’re going to need all hands on deck to get through them all.’
Groaning, I flop off the high stool and drag myself off to get into my plastics. Dad’s always like ‘ooh yeah I’ll take you to the shop at midnight to get the cool new game everyone will be playing’ or ‘oh absolutely we can go on holiday this year’ or even ‘yes you can have an ice cream after dinner’. But does he ever come through with it? My bum he does.
One time I complained to my aunt about it, and she’d been all ‘You mustn’t be hard on your dad, it’s been really difficult for him since your mum died,’ but what good is that to me? She died so long ago that I don’t even remember it. You’d think he’d be over it by now.
I’ll probably have to ride my bike into town tomorrow, if Dad will even let me out before the shops shut. Everyone else will already be way into the game, and they’ll be levelling up and sharing spoilers. I could just get the download, sure, but I like having all the cases lined up on my shelf. Third corpse this week means we’ll be slammed in the basement, so it’s not like I’ll even have time to play anyway. I swear Dad only wants me around to do work for him. If I started refusing I bet he’d kick me out or something.
Tangy, my ginger cat, lets out a little ‘mrrp’ of surprise as I slam into my room and fling myself down, face first, next to him on the bed.
‘You’d like it if I spent all weekend playing Lethal Method, wouldn’t you, Tangy?’ I roll onto my side and start massaging his little toe beans just like he likes. His big, dumb yellow eyes blink slowly back at me. ‘I swear you’re the only one who cares about me.’
Tangy’s fur smells like a barn. I inhale deeply into his side, hugging him to me even as he starts squirming out of my grasp. ‘Oi you ginger melt, I’m showing you I love you - yeah, that’s right,’ he flops over and lets me rub his tummy, ‘I knew you loved me too.’
‘What are you up to in there?’ Dad’s voice rumbles down the hall like a bowling ball, knocking down all my happiness pins. ‘I want to see you in the shop in five minutes.’
Listen, I don’t actually mind helping out in the shop. It’s weird, and interesting, and you do honestly get used to the smell pretty quickly. Washing the body feels a bit rude, but you put a little cloth over their downstairs bits and just get on with it, and pretty soon you forget that the collection of bits and bobs on the table used to be a person.
Prepping a corpse for burial is an art project, a fashion project, and a science project all in one. If they’re having an open casket you need to make sure the body looks as lifelike as possible, so you arrange them just so, fill up all their crevices with cotton wool (yep, even those bits - Dad does that), and get your paints out. You nick the artery at their neck and you let the blood all drain out - don’t ever forget your wellies - and you pump them full of embalming fluid. You stretch their arms and legs out to stop rigour mortis setting in too fast, and you wrangle them into their burial outfits. When you’re finished, if you’ve done a good job, you’re left with a realistic imitation of a living person having a sleep. If you’ve done a bad job then, hoo boy, the family will let you know.
Bodies are heavy. When I clomp down into the basement of Hearst Family Funeral Care in my wellies and apron, Dad’s tapping his foot next to Mrs Bingley on the gurney.